out of the frying pan

Dear Di, there are many good points in what yo say. I'd like to make just one general comment.

Let me first say that I am a foreigner resident in the UK not entitled to vote in the national elections of this country. Obviously, the economy and politics affect my life as well as everybody else.

I can only observe and comment. My feeling about the current situation is that it is about POWER. A bunch of hypocrites who didn't have the guts or the guile, in a secret ballot, to get rid of a PM they thought unsuitable to govern had to resort to underhand ways to force him out. As soon as the chancellor and the health minister resigned I sensed that they will be the front runners to replace him. Everybody always thinks that he/she can do a better job than the incumbent. Forget power to the people: 650 members of Parliament are supposed to speak for 67million UK citizens How many of those 650 are speaking for themselves?

No, I don't think so. Yes, another three years of Patel, Dorries, Rees-Mogg driven politics is going to be bad. Make no mistake, however, Boris is a bad person. We all have our faults, but some of the things in his personal life are so appalling that one cannot help but presume a huge deficiency of character, such that he should never have been elected, not as leader of the Tories, nor as de-facto Prime Minister.

And that deficency of character has been revealed, but not by Partygate, all of the lies and probably every reason that people will give when asked to point out reasons for his departure. Like the fat boy at school, he wants to be liked not just by his peers, but by everyone. He says or promises whatever he thinks the person he is talking to wants to hear. This led to unfinished projects and unfulfilled promises whilst he was London's Mayor and during his (thankfully short) time at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

For the second time in just under 15 years we will have an unelected Prime Minister.

The Tories have been unlucky, they will say and they may have a point. But they have been in power either in coalition or with a majority for 12 years. 12 years! If only Blair had not lied about Iraq. If... if... if...

I believe Brexit to have been a grave error. Yes, the Franco-German obsession with federalism was a major problem, but as a trading bloc and market for our goods it was a marvellous thing. Having lived in Spain for 15 years, I can tell you that every time the UK implemented one of the laws that so infuriated the Brexiteers, Spain would vote its adoption too and completely fail to comply with it, if they didn't like it. I know much the same happened in Greece. Tougher words from Blair/Brown and Cameron would have been useful at the time.

I would like to see a General Election called, however it is not going to be as far as I can tell. Constitutionally, only the PM can dissolve parliament. Perhaps, somewhere, there is a very dusty document that says the Queen can do it in dire circumstances, but she won't.

 
One major failing at the very outset of joining the EEC - as it was then - was the decision to allow the social and health care rights of EC citizens in other countries to be those of the country of residence. So Hans retires and comes to Halifax and gets the use of the NHS free at the point of access. Bert goes to Bremen and will pay for medical insurance direct to the state... if he is under 50. Otherwise, tough, private insurance all the way and it is nearly as expensive as US medical cover.

Yes, I would take Starmer, As far as I know or can tell, he is well-meaning and yes, boring, but that would do me just fine.

I turned on the radio this morning and was surprised Boris was no longer PM. As you know, I’m not neutral. I hate him and the scumocracy he represents. They sit in opposition to working-class values almost diametrically. We’re all telling different stories. My understanding is no straight lines. Putin didn’t get Boris elected. Nor did he get him fired. The Russian autocrat’s influence is waning. Nuclear war is a real possibility.

Putin did help get the moron moron elected. He provided funding and expertise and with the help of Facebook, Trump triumphed.

Little Trump, Boris had the backing of all those Tory freetraders that imagine little or no government is a good thing. The freeloader party had a thinktank attitude and they hired Aaron Banks who was funded by the Russian Secret Service. They needed a front man. Boris didn’t, originally, think leaving the EEC was a good think (and it has been disastrous, knocking around five percent off the GDP with more to come), but the former PM was easily persuaded to go against Cameron, his old Etonian buddy. As you know, he came out with the preposterous idea that it would save the NHS £350 million a week. Boris parked the bus. Like Trump who mirrored the racist attitude to almost every policy in his make America great again, Boris’s code was gaining control. A coded way of saying keep the coloured people the other side of the Channel. As Ewan, rightly, pointed out, most EEC countries pay lip-service to legislation. Boris and his cronies twisted the narrative. Made it a single issue, which made him PM. The next PM of the scumocracy will be more of the same. It gives politicians, like the very rich former Chancellor of the Exchequer breathing room to hit the austerity button again and destroy the country, in much the way Putin’s cronies destroy their country. The same but different.

Labour can't hold power without SNP support. If they give SNP what they want (I want) Labour can't hold power. 

Yes, there’ll be an alliance. I hoped that would have been the case for the Corbyn era. Even before that, when the Liberals decided to go with Cameron and Osborne, I felt relieved at the time. After the implosion of vast handouts to bankers, I didn’t want Labour to carry the can. Little did I know Austerity, a policy of taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich would become state policy for the next ten years and more. The twin Etonian charlatans that loved to hate the working class, were replaced by a comic figure, whom the tabloids and right-wing press loved. The love-in is finished. Tory-scum policy remains on track. Only a SNP-Labour alliance will give enough Parliamentary seats for government. In truth, SNP policy was stolen from Labour’s handbook. So there is no difference. Not really, apart from us ceding from UK. If we’d did so in the 1970s we’d be one of the richest nations in Europe. Like Norway, we’d have a sovereign fund that would have been the envy of the world. Money wasted on right-wing shibboleths, unemployment and destroying traditional industries. Short-term and stupid.